Reviewing, Copying, and Modifying Strategies - 2020.2 English - UG904

1. Select Tools > Settings from the main menu.
2. Select Strategies in the left-side panel.
3. Select Run Strategies to review, copy, or modify run strategies. The Run Strategies page (shown in Figure 2-9) contains a list of pre-defined run strategies for various tools and release versions.
   Note: For information on reviewing, copying, or modifying Report Strategies, see this link in Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Design Analysis and Closure Techniques (UG906).
4. In the Flow pull-down menu, select the appropriate Vivado Implementation version for the available strategies. A list of included strategies is displayed.
5. Create a new strategy or copy an existing strategy:
   • To create a new strategy, click the Create Strategy button on the toolbar or select it from the right-click menu.
   • To copy an existing strategy, select Copy Strategy from the toolbar or from the popup menu. The Vivado design tools:
   1. Create a copy of the currently selected strategy.
   2. Add it to the User Defined Strategies list.
   3. Display the strategy options on the right side of the dialog box for you to modify.
6. Provide a name and description for the new strategy as follows:

   Name

   Enter a strategy name to assign to a run.

   Type

   Specify Synthesis or Implementation.

   Tool Version

   Specify the tool version.

   Description

   Enter the strategy description displayed in the Design Run results table.

7. Edit the Options for the various implementation steps:
   • Design Initialization (init_design)
   • Opt Design (opt_design)
   • Power Opt Design (power_opt_design) (optional)
   • Place Design (place_design)
   • Post-Place Power Opt Design (power_opt_design) (optional)
   • Post-Place Phys Opt Design (phys_opt_design) (optional)
   • Route Design (route_design)
   • Post-Route Phys Opt Design (phys_opt_design) (optional)
   • Write Bitstream (write_bitstream) (all devices except Versal)
   • Write Device Image (write_device_image) (Versal devices)
   Tip: Select an option to view a brief description of the option at the bottom of the Design Run Settings dialog box.
   
   
   
8. Click the right-side column of a specific option to modify command options. See the previous figure for an example.

   You can then:

   • Select predefined options from the pull down menu.
   • Enable or disable some options with a check box.
   • Type a user-defined value for options with a text entry field.
   • Use the file browser to specify a file for options accepting a file name and path.
   • Insert a custom Tcl script (called a hook script) before and after each step in the implementation process (tcl.pre and tcl.post). This lets you perform specific tasks either before or after each implementation step (for example, generating a timing report before and after Place Design to compare timing results).

     For more information on defining Tcl hook scripts, see this link in the Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Using Tcl Scripting (UG894).

     Relative paths in the tcl.pre and tcl.post scripts are relative to the appropriate run directory of the project they are applied to: <project>/<project.runs>/<run_name>.

     You can use the DIRECTORY property of the current project or current run to define the relative paths in your scripts:

     get_property DIRECTORY [current_project] 
     get_property DIRECTORY [current_run]

9. Click OK to save the new strategy.

The new strategy is listed under User Defined Strategy. The Vivado tools save user-defined strategies to the following locations:

• Linux OS: $HOME/.Xilinx/Vivado/strategies
• Windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Xilinx\Vivado\strategies